Bagenders: Series 2
by Lady Alyssa
Summary: The long awaited sequel...
1. University Challenge in the Dark

Bagenders: Series 2. IMPORTANT: This is a sequel and will make no sense whatsoever if you haven't read Bagenders, which we'd quite like you to. Go on. Website: http://bagenders.stormpages.com  
  
Author: Lady Alyssa and Random Flatmate.  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien owns all the characters; University Challenge is owned by the bbc, and Beelzebub owns Jeremy Paxman's soul. All companies/bands/universities have nothing to do with us.  
  
Rating: PG-13 (violence; strife; language; Gandalf)  
  
Reviews: yes please, please or else it means we have to work.  
  
Story notes: The Fellowship have moved house, but things haven't changed that much...  
  
Note for non-Brits: 'University Challenge' is a programme that has been running intermittently since 1962. Universities submit a team of four people who are asked very hard questions in a condescending manner, currently by Jeremy Paxman, who also presents Newsnight and asks politicians hard questions in a condescending manner. If you win you get a slightly tacky glass trophy (and no money. Bastards.).  
  
Episode 1: University Challenge in the Dark  
  
  
  
"Has anyone seen my other pair of boxers?"  
  
"In the tumble drier."  
  
Legolas looked up from his copy of the Grauniad. "We do have enough money for you to buy some new ones Aragorn."  
  
"Yes, but that would be a waste of money. I know I own boxer shorts, I packed them before we moved. It's just a question of finding them."  
  
"Aragorn. We moved three weeks ago. If you haven't found them by now you're not going to."  
  
Aragorn had stopped the tumble drier and was rooting in its contents to find his boxers. He found them and put them on under his dressing gown.  
  
"Eeeeee ahahahahaha oooooooo owwowowowowow"  
  
"Of course, letting them cool down first might have been a good idea."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Merry awoke, deep in the darkest pit of ordure, illumined by no light, but rather darkness visible which served only to discover sights of woe, regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace and rest can never dwell, hope never comes that comes to all; but torture without end.  
  
"TURN THE SODDING ALARM CLOCK OFF!"  
  
The screaming of the damned stopped.  
  
"Why the bloody hell you had to buy a Marilyn Manson alarm clock anyway..."  
  
"It wiz oan special offer."  
  
Merry dragged himself out of the pit, which may or may not have at one point have been a bed. He staggered through no-man's land towards the dread portal. The room was painted in cheap black paint, through which the floral wallpaper could still be seen. Frodo had refused to set foot in Merry and Pippin's room three days after they had moved in, saying he was considering phoning the Guinness Book of Records for the 'fastest creation of a dung heap' record.  
  
Merry turned the door handle and tugged. Then tugged again.  
  
"'S stuck"  
  
"Don't be such a pussy." Pippin swung on the door. Then he looked thoughtful. "Y'know it might be sticky toffee pudding."  
  
"You mean the stuff we had on Tuesday?"  
  
"No, the stuff we had last Thursday. I was gonnae throw it out, but Ah couldnae find the bin, so Ah threw it at the door."  
  
"Oh. So what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? WE'RE GOING TO STARVE!" Merry had his hands round Pippin's neck and was shaking him desperately.  
  
"Naw. We've goat the sticky toffee pudding. We'll eat oor way oot."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Frodo had been up for a few hours and had returned to his room to water the house plants. He ignored the screaming from the room next door as a matter of course. Giving Merry and Pippin their own room had been such a relief, since he now could ignore the noises and didn't have to be party to what was causing them. He hummed to himself as he worked. Sam had filled the room with plants, which, coupled with the chintz that covered every available surface that didn't have a doily on it, made it look like Laura Ashley had been imprisoned in the hothouses at Kew.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
In Gimli's room things dripped, clunked, ticked and oscillated. It was a scene that would have made Heath Robinson pack up his pencils and become an accountant. Gimli was not due to be awake for a few more hours yet, as the water clock measured the time (the water clock, plumbed into the mains was the reason for the terrible shower pressure and total lack of hot water between exactly 7.51 in the morning and 1.54 in the afternoon). When he did awake, though it would be to find his clothes neatly out for him, a piece of buttered toast on a plate and a loaded toothbrush. Well, that was the plan. The plan, however, did not reckon for Merry and Pippin having spent the whole of the previous evening poking the contraption, going "Oooo. What does this do?". Most dentists do not recommend cleaning your teeth with your own y-fronts. Especially if they're made of metal.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
And to Gandalf. What can we say about Gandalf? (Except the obvious, which is mostly unrepeatable). Gandalf had unpacked himself after a few days, had explored the whole house in about three and a half seconds and had retreated to the sitting room. Except he no longer had His Chair. He was surviving in a deck chair, but had seen the adverts on the TV for chairs usually described as 'relax chairs'. He wanted one. Badly. Especially after he found out about the built in vibrate function...  
  
His attempts to steal Legolas' and/or Aragorn's credit cards had been unsuccessful. Threatening the hobbits had been fruitless also, since they had all blown their money on alcohol and kebabs (Merry and Pippin) a huge spending spree at the Chelsea Flower Show (Sam) and something mumbled that Frodo was being very reticent about. So Gandalf was reduced to pleading. A typical exchange (generally with Legolas, since he had control over most of the money) went thusly:  
  
"I need the chair. I'm very elderly."  
  
"You have been elderly since I have known you. You have been elderly since the Third Age. And generally old before that. And anyway, we're all elderly!"  
  
"But I've done a lot of good work in the world!"  
  
"And undone it again! You got hobbits to do all your dirty work for you, and the only reason that Valar sent you to Middle Earth in the first place is because they didn't like you!"  
  
"I have mobility problems." Gandalf sunk lower in his chair.  
  
"Not when presented with alcohol. Back in the old days you could walk for miles, climb mountains, breakdance, ride horses and giant eagles and you haven't aged a day since!"  
  
"I only rode the eagles because wheelchairs hadn't been invented."  
  
"A giant eagle is not a mobility aid. It's just a bloody enormous bird with bad table manners. And what would you know about them becoming extinct?"  
  
"Evolution. Darwin. Survival of the fittest."  
  
"Fittest defined as those prepared to be your 24 hour taxi service? They didn't even leave any fossils for goodness sake!"  
  
And so on, descending into that classic argument tactic of bringing up things that happened six months ago, or in the case of the Fellowship, things that happened in the Dark Ages. Gandalf was still living in the deckchair, which had been augmented by so many blankets, cushions, bit of string, garden canes, bird feathers, bin liners and a stuffed auk, that it looked like a cross between a magpie's nest and the throne of the dictator of a small, poverty stricken and corrupt east European nation.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Frodo was surprised to receive a letter that did not look like junk mail. He opened it, and then started grinning like an idiot. Thank goodness everyone else had gone to work and Gandalf was watching 'T J Hooker'. Frodo had been cordially invited to rejoin the rest of the 1989 University Challenge winning team from the Open University to appear on 'University Challenge Reunited'. It was probably best not to tell the others till it was all finalised though.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas was surprised to receive a letter that did not look like junk mail. He opened it very suspiciously. He spent a good five minutes examining it before concluding that Merry, Pippin and Gandalf did not have either the intelligence or the imagination to come up with a con like this. Legolas had been cordially invited to rejoin the rest of the 1972 University Challenge winning team from Corpus Christi College to appear on 'University Challenge Reunited'. It was probably best not to tell the others till it was all finalised though.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"I have something to tell you all."  
  
The Fellowship looked expectantly at Legolas and started guessing as to what he was going to say.  
  
"You're gay?"  
  
"You're pregnant?"  
  
"It was you what did the Burnley Post Office robbery?"  
  
"You're Jack the Ripper?"  
  
"It was you who stole my boxer shorts?"  
  
Legolas looked witheringly at the rest of the Fellowship. "No. I am going to be appearing on 'University Challenge Reunited.'"  
  
Frodo looked shocked. "But... but... that was what I was going to tell everyone! I'm going on University Challenge Reunited as well!"  
  
Suddenly there became a thick atmosphere in the room. Legolas and Frodo looked at each other through narrowed eyes.  
  
"Then may the best elf win." said Legolas through gritted teeth.  
  
Frodo squared up to him. A long way up. Frodo, when sane, was normally a mild mannered, unflappable person. But he possessed a competitive steak longer than the Nile, especially in games requiring intellect. More specifically Trivial Pursuit and chess. Soon after the invention of chess he had played a game with Aragorn, and he had had to be restrained by Aragorn's bodyguard from doing him a mortal (or as much as you can do an immortal a mortal) with a morningstar.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
There was one major problem. Whilst Frodo's final had only been 13 years ago, it could be plausibly argued that he had aged well (which was of course the truth), there was rather more problems in the fact that Legolas didn't look a day older than he did in 1972. Though that's not to say that he did look the same. A picture was dug up of the 1972 team, and it was as if Led Zeppelin had been on University Challenge.  
  
"Perhaps he really wiz in Led Zeppelin. He didnae tell us where he wiz fir most of the 70s. Took us ages tae find him."  
  
Legolas twitched slightly. He had gone to university (for about the 12th time) in an attempt to get away from these people, and had been in the middle of his 4th PhD when Merry and Pippin had found him. "If I had been in Led Zeppelin, I think I would have the money to be living in a mansion somewhere, not with you lot."  
  
"Yeah, but if you really were in Led Zep you'd've spent all yer money on drugs and groupies. Wouldn't be any left for mansions."  
  
Legolas gave up. Trying to reason with hobbits was pointless.  
  
"How are we going to make him look old?"  
  
"I am old."  
  
"You need to look it too Legolas."  
  
"I do look it. You can see it in my eyes that I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders."  
  
"That won't work on TV."  
  
Frodo had a suggestion. "We could cut his hair a bit. Not many people in their 50s have hair that long."  
  
"You wouldn't dare..."  
  
"Or maybe we could get the tweezers and pluck some of it out to make it look like he's got a receding hairline."  
  
Frodo found himself lifted up and brought to Legolas' eye level. "Do not. Touch. The Hair. UNDERSTAND?"  
  
Frodo nodded frantically.  
  
Sam weighed in with some tact. "If you tied the hair back, we did a little bit of make up and put you in a really middle aged suit would that be ok?" Legolas cringed at the idea of a middle aged suit, causing him to drop Frodo. "Legolas, people are going to notice if you're on the telly looking the same age as 30 years ago."  
  
Legolas gave in. A middle aged suit was found for him, courtesy of the local market. Legolas had wanted a new, tailored Saville Row one, but this had been vetoed as he was only going to wear it a few times. His hair was duly tied back and some subtle lines put on his face with make up.  
  
Legolas gritted his teeth. Any more teeth gritting and it would be tension headaches for the next three years. "How do I look?"  
  
A Scottish voice form the door piped up "Like Neil from the 'Young Ones' at 50"  
  
Legolas leapt for the voice, but Pippin had forward planned and was racing towards the door crying "oh, heavy man, heavy!"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
After much arguing, fighting and violence it was agreed that the whole Fellowship had to go to both Legolas and Frodo's games. Even if there would be one person on each occasion attempting to jinx the game. Legolas and Frodo's teams easily got through the first rounds, mostly because they had the advantage of six thousand years of general knowledge. There was a moment thought, when the opposing team had given the correct answer of 'Dante's Inferno' to one of the questions that Frodo could be clearly heard muttering 'bloody plagiarist...'.  
  
However, then came the second round. Open university 1989 vs St Hilda's College 1998. The all female college. Women. Merry. Pippin. Gandalf. We don't really need to tell you what's going to happen do we? Ok, so we'll fill in a few details. How about harassment from the audience, police involvement, twanging bra straps, jam roly-poly and a set of dentures?  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Welcome to the final of University Challenge Reunited. Tonight's teams are the 1989 winners, Open University, and the 1972 winners, Corpus Christi College Cambridge."  
  
"Open University have been the second highest scoring team ever on University challenge, and comfortably beat their 1989 opponents, Leeds, in the final. Lets see what they looked like back then."  
  
A picture was displayed. All the team were wearing ill advised 1980s clothes, but Frodo's mullet had to be seen to be believed.  
  
"Let's let the team introduce themselves."  
  
"Hello, I'm Bob Davidson, I studied Natural Sciences and I'm now a market researcher."  
  
"Hello, I'm Christine Robertson, I studied Psychology and I'm now a Psychologist in the NHS."  
  
"Hello, I'm Dave Christenson, I studied English and I'm now a librarian at Manchester University."  
  
"Hello, I'm Frodo Baggins, I studied History and am currently engaged in voluntary work." The Fellowship had spent a long time working out a plausible lie that didn't mean being blatant. Frodo did plenty of voluntary things for the Women's Institute.  
  
"Corpus Christi were the highest scoring team ever on University Challenge, like Open comfortably beating their 1972 opponents, Magdelene Oxford. Let's see what they looked like then."  
  
A Led Zeppelin tour poster appeared on screen, and there was much laughter from the audience, but especially from Gandalf who had been responsible for switching them earlier. There was a large degree of muttering between Jeremy Paxman and the floor manager, with the decision to press on and look for the proper picture before they broadcast.  
  
"Let's let the team introduce themselves."  
  
"Hello, I'm Owen Greenleaf, I studied Oriental Languages, and I'm now working for the Great North Eastern Railway Company." No lies there, just a certain lack of detail.  
  
"Hello, I'm Andrew Phillips, I studied History and I'm now Conservative MP for Bath North-West."  
  
"Hello, I'm Graeme Anderson, I studied Chemical Engineering and I'm now director of ICI."  
  
"Hello, I'm Brian Lang, I studied Classics and I'm now Principal of St. Andrews University."  
  
A casual observer would have noted nothing out of the ordinary, but one trained in interpreting body language would have noticed the tension building up in the man currently known as Owen as each of the success stories was recounted. You could almost see the missed opportunities and ruined chances floating past him, each of them sunk by the rest of the Fellowship.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"What would I be referring to in Italy if I referred to 'La Serenissima'?"  
  
"Open, Baggins."  
  
"Venice."  
  
"Correct. Your bonus questions are on the Doges of Venice. For five points..."  
  
The rest of the audience were not really concentrating on the questions, more the team interactions. The six team members who were not Frodo and Legolas had answered about two questions between them. Both teams had already passed the University Challenge scoring record, and there were still nearly fifteen minutes of the programme to go. There was jockeying for position, as first one, then the other went into the lead. The rest of the Fellowship were on the edge of their seats. They knew they were in a lose-lose situation, but probably favouring Legolas winning. After all, when Frodo had lost at Trivial Pursuit (due to some nasty dice rolls) his attempts to rip Aragorn's arms off at the shoulder had merely resulted in some nasty sprains. Legolas, on the other hand, was a skilled longbow archer.  
  
"Where's Gandalf gone?" whispered Sam.  
  
"Shh. Don't care."  
  
"Another starter for ten. J. F. Bentley designed which Lond-"  
  
"Corpus Christi, Greenleaf."  
  
"Westminster Cathedral."  
  
"Correct. Your bonus questions are on twentieth century church architecture. Coventry Cathedral..."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Gandalf had indeed wandered off. He felt that intellectual rigour was dull in comparison to 'enormous knockers' and had gone to find his own entertainment. He had found it in an electrical engineer called Sandy, who was racking her brains for a way to electrocute the smelly old man in the dress and funny hat without taking her with him. Although, given the dress, if she could just get to the phone, with any luck the psychiatric hospital would be quite grateful that she'd found him.  
  
"So do you come here often?"  
  
"Every day. I work here."  
  
"If I said you had a sexy body would you hold it against me?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Do you have any magic in you?" Sandy raised an eyebrow. "Do you want some?"  
  
"Only so I could turn you into a newt. Then step on you."  
  
"So, you like it rough then?"  
  
"Piss off."  
  
Gandalf turned to his last option, which he had learned from Merry. "Get yer coat love, you've pulled."  
  
The fist which hit him in the stomach only temporarily disabled him, but Sandy had the advantage of knowing the territory and disappeared. Gandalf realised that before using that chat up line he should have analysed Merry's success rate first.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"With five minutes to go the scores are exactly equal. Another starter for ten..."  
  
Legolas and Frodo were hunched over their buzzers, occasionally glaring at each other out of the corner of their eyes. The rest of the two teams had entirely lost interest and had started chatting , passing round photos of each other's children, reminiscing about the time one of them had streaked through the union bar, and so on.  
  
Then there was a strange humming noise and the lights became brighter. Then in one moment, the lights went out and Jeremy Paxman's desk exploded. There was a stunned silence, then the sound of Jeremy Paxman assuring everyone he was all right. A few seconds later there was a sort of muffled noise, almost as if a 'Newsnight' presenter was being stuffed into a large sack. And a cackle...  
  
The lights returned. There remained the charred remnants of Paxman's desk, but no Paxman. Not even charred remnants.  
  
"Sorry folks, but we can't carry on like this. Recording's over."  
  
There were boos and cries of 'Fascist!" from the audience.  
  
Legolas and Frodo looked at each other. Then leapt screaming at each others throats and attempted to disembowel each other with their bare hands (which is especially difficult of you're starting at throat level.) The rest of their respective teams tried to pull them off each other. Then decided that this was too dangerous, and they should just watch. After someone had called the police and ambulance, just in case.  
  
"You did that deliberately! You knew I was going to win!"  
  
"You were on the verge of losing so you did for the lights! And got someone to kidnap the presenter!"  
  
"Shortarse!"  
  
"Nancy elf!"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"So. How are you feeling?"  
  
"I didn't know that hobbits were such vicious creatures."  
  
Legolas was sat up in a hospital bed looking like he'd gone three rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson, an impression backed up by the bite marks on his pointy ears and up and down his arms.  
  
"Och. Ye'll mend."  
  
"I know I will. That's not the point. I've written to my solicitor asking to have a restraining order taken out against Frodo."  
  
"Ummm... Legolas... You do have to share a house with him..."  
  
"I will get out a restraining order stopping him coming within ten feet of me. That is perfectly compatible with communal living. We own a big house."  
  
Aragorn gave in. Hell hath no fury like an elf with bitten ears.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"I brought grapes, Frodo."  
  
Frodo was in much the same state as Legolas, except the bite marks came from bigger teeth. Since Frodo had been put in the Children's Ward (after a conversation with the psychiatrists along the line of 'anyone daft enough to pick a fight with Frodo Baggins gets what they deserve and if he's not gibbering then we're not taking him') he was getting a lot of sympathy from the parents of the other patient as an obvious victim of child abuse. This impression was reinforced by the fact that only his three elder brothers came to visit him, two of which were obviously so traumatised they could barely look after themselves, or even maintain socially acceptable behaviour. This was the only reason Frodo had not been reported to the nurses for his triumphalism at beating the entire ward at family Trivial Pursuit, and the only reason Merry and Pippin had not been arrested for sexually harassing the female staff.  
  
"Thank you. You can put them next them next to the empty chocolate boxes that Merry and Pippin think I don't know they've eaten the contents of."  
  
"Feeling any better?"  
  
"I'll feel a lot better when the restraining order comes through."  
  
"But, um..."  
  
"I've thought of that. It specifies that he has to be 10 feet away from me, and the house is big enough to do that."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was 4 am in the morning. The household was still riven by the feud now that Legolas and Frodo were out of hospital. Frodo had spent a week in his room 'convalescing', which the rest of the house translated as 'sulking'. The ten feet restraining orders were being enforced, and an uneasy truce was in place. But Gandalf was uninterested in that. He opened the cupboard under the stairs. Then he took the false back out of the cupboard under the stairs to reveal a bound and gagged figure.  
  
"Walkies Jeremy!"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
To be continued....  
  
[Authors wave indiscriminately: "Hello to all our loyal fans out there, especially (squints at piece of paper) Year 10 at Melbourne Girls' College, for whom we have a special message from our Landlord 'Get off the lawn in front of their house, or I'll call the police.', and all those lovely people in our guestbook and e-mail inbox (apart from the bastards who sent us viruses)."] 


	2. The Fallout Shelter of Doom

We are very sorry about the length of time between updates; we're not trying to hurt you, it's just people keep asking for essays from us. You'd think we were supposed to be studying or something... Anyway, this is longer and funnier than the last one.  
  
Author: Lady Alyssa and Random Dent.  
  
Disclaimer: JRR Tolkien owns all the characters; Beelzebub still owns Jeremy Paxman's soul. The neighbours all belong to us, but 'Enterprise' belongs to Paramount (and we could sooo write it better than them).  
  
Rating: PG-13 (holes; strife; language; Armageddon)  
  
Reviews: yes please, please or else it means we have to work.  
  
Story notes: 'Protect & Survive' is mentioned a few times in this - it was the UK government's public information campaign about nuclear war - if you want to know more, go here: http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/  
  
Important: this, while still a comedy, does have some rather black humour and mentions of nuclear war in it. If this is going to upset you, don't read it.  
  
Episode 2: The Fallout Shelter of Impending Doom  
  
Rosy fingered dawn graced the eastern horizon, birds sang and Legolas sprang out of bed with catlike agility into his first tai-chi position. As he progressed through its forms the plants on his window ledge opened, elf and plant in perfect harmony. For every morning that Legolas woke up in a room not containing a bearded, unwashed, unkempt man who seemed to be able to snore and drool at the same time, he became a little bit closer to achieving complete oneness with the rest of the universe. He and Frodo had begun talking again. They'd tried talking to other members of the Fellowship, but this hadn't worked. Any member of the Fellowship either found talking about current affairs, art, literature and so on, either boring, 'poncey' or downright incomprehensible. They'd both tried talking to inanimate objects, but after Legolas had found Frodo having an in-depth discussion about the latest exhibition at the Tate Modern with the toaster he decided that apologising was probably best. At least, before either of them started thinking the toaster was talking back at them. His morning meditation finished he dressed and left his room in search of muesli.  
  
Unfortunately, oneness with the universe didn't include oneness with the articles currently covering the stairs and he fell headfirst down them. He uttered some not very serene words and got up just in time to avoid being hit by four hobbits falling down the stairs in their usual breakfast stampede.  
  
Frodo picked himself up first and launched into vengeful mode, "But I tidied up in here just last night. Who's left all their stuff on the stairs; if it was you , Pippin, you can tidy it up yourself..."  
  
"If it wis me, ah widn't have fallen over it!"  
  
The argument was prevented from getting any further by Aragorn sliding down the banisters in a movement that would have made Mary Poppins look like a tap-dancing hippo. Legolas and the hobbits stared at him.  
  
"I tidied this up last night and I don't want to have to do it again this morning. None of you seem to appreciate how much I do for you. I don't care if it's going to make you miss the best part of the day, but this staircase is going to be safe again before you leave the house!" Sam grabbed Frodo by the neck of his dressing gown to restrain him from disembowelling Aragon with one of the railings that held the bannister up.  
  
"It's not mess. At some point in the very near future you're all going to thank me for taking this important step in our survival." The hobbits began exchanging looks of dread. "We've all been watching the news recently and and if we keep on just sitting back and ignoring the signs we will regret it later. Or maybe we won't. Because we'll all be dead. No, we need these reinforcements over the cupboard under the stairs for protection against..." dramatic arm gesture "nuclear fallout."  
  
"Valar save us, not again."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
While Aragorn was in a shower 'appreciating the uncontaminated water supply while we've still got one', the rest of the Fellowship had a house meeting in the kitchen.  
  
"It's like the Cuban Missile Crisis all over again," said Frodo.  
  
"It wasn't just the Cuban Missile Crisis. Remember when he was foreseeing our deaths by meteor, volcano, plague and global warming? This is just the first time he's ever had the same one twice." Legolas had spent more time around Aragorn than the hobbits had and had seen most of his rampaging paranoia first hand.  
  
"No it's not, he was sure Ragnarok was coming round twice."  
  
"But those were two very cold winters."  
  
"And he did spend them snowed in in a longhouse with Arwen. Three months shut in a house with her and I'd think Armageddon was upon us. Or at least I'd wish for it."  
  
"Ragnarok?" Pippin had reverted to his default setting of confusion.  
  
"The Viking end of the world? When the wolf eats the sun? You hung around with the Vikings for a couple of centuries, you said the raping and pillaging bits were the some of the most fun you've had in your life."  
  
"Vikings?"  
  
"Well, that wasn't what they called themselves, but you must remember the big hairy guys with axes who came from Scandinavia?"  
  
"Weren't they the Macedonians?"  
  
"No, the Macedonians were the big, hairy guys with the huge long spears who came from Greece."  
  
"Ah, right. Hey, Merry, you remember Wee Alex, don't you?"  
  
"You shouldn't refer to an ancient king who ruled a significant part of the known world as 'Wee Alex'."  
  
"Yeah, I remember Wee Alex, he was sort of funny about getting people to bow to him."  
  
"Wis Wee Alex their king? Ah didnae know that."  
  
"Why do you think the army followed him? And why he lived in palaces?"  
  
"Well, as far as ah could tell the army followed him because he wis shaggin' most of them and most of the time he lived in tents."  
  
"We burned down a palace once, that was a great night, that was."  
  
"We've got to get back to the point. We have to stop him."  
  
"Wee Alex?"  
  
"No, Aragorn."  
  
"How?" asked Frodo.  
  
"Why?" asked Merry.  
  
"What?" asked Pippin.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
That afternoon work continued on the cupboard under the stairs and Legolas was really beginning to regret suggesting that Aragorn did something useful with the space. He'd only meant for Aragorn to turn it into another bathroom or put up some shelves.  
  
"I'm sure the cupboard was supposed to be bigger than this. I checked the plans before I started to make sure we would all fit. And the structural integrity was good enough for the reinforcements." Aragorn leaned heavily on the back wall of the cupboard.  
  
It echoed  
  
Then it echoed again.  
  
Aragorn might not have been the brightest monarch Gondor and Arnor had ever had, but his ranger-sense was telling him that something wasn't quite right. He tried knocking on the wall again. It was definitely hollow. And walls weren't supposed to knock back, were they? Or were they? No, he was thinking of something else entirely. He did what any butch man in his situation would do. He whacked his claw hammer at the wall, satisfied when it went through. He then yanked at it and fell backwards as the whole back wall came out.  
  
The whole Fellowship, this being a very dull Sunday, were quickly gathered as Aragorn fell backwards out of the cupboard with suitable drama and swearing.  
  
"Buggering bastard bollocks!"  
  
The hobbits, disappointed that Aragorn had not given himself any comedy injuries peered into the cupboard nosily.  
  
"Here, that's not Joanna Lumley is it?"  
  
"Look, just because someone is tied up in our understairs cupboard doesn't mean they are Joanna Lumley. She doesn't have a beard."  
  
"She could have just stopped shaving."  
  
Frodo intervened. "Sam, I had these really long c-conversations with my psychologist about what's r-real and what's not, so could you, umm, tell me, ummm..."  
  
"Yes, Frodo, there is a strange bearded man, who's not Gimli, Gandalf or Aragorn, tied up in the cupboard."  
  
"Oh, good." Then Frodo collected himself and went back into head of the household mode. "PIPPIN! GANDALF! What have you done?"  
  
The figure, in a tattered suit, tried to cower further back into the recesses of the cupboard, shielding his eyes from the unaccustomed light.  
  
Legolas looked into the cupboard. "It s rather unusual for them to kidnap a man. Women, yes, Sarah Michelle Gellar especially, but not men. And he does seem really rather familiar."  
  
There was an approaching cackle. Gandalf appeared, leering in his usual way. "Hobbits, nosey creatures, poking about where they shouldn't."  
  
"Actually, it was Aragorn, and who discovered him is not the point. Who is he and what is he doing in the cupboard?"  
  
Gandalf lurched towards the cupboard and stuck his head round the door. "Here boy! Good dog!"  
  
The figure shuffled forwards, still bound. It knelt at Gandalf's feet, who patted it on the head. "Good dog. Have a doggy treat." The man was given a distressed bacon sandwich, which he ate with apparent relish.  
  
The penny dropped with Legolas. "Oh, good grief. You're keeping Jeremy Paxman as a *pet*? Had they run out of Rottweilers?"  
  
"Good Paxman, down boy." Gandalf reacted as he usually did to Legolas' difficult questions, by pretending to be deaf.  
  
"House meeting. Kitchen. Now."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The House Meeting convened, with Exhibit A on the kitchen table gnawing on a chicken leg. Frodo retrieved the minutes book from the kitchen drawer.  
  
"Shall we skip the apologies and confirming the minutes of the last meeting?"  
  
"No, look, I object to the representation of my behaviour at the pub on Saturday night as 'illegal and immoral'. It was merely illegal."  
  
"Pippin, overruled." Legolas was chairelf, and used to this type of bickering. "In that case I move that we go on to Item 3 on the Agenda, proposed by Frodo, 'What the hell are we going to do with Jeremy Paxman?'"  
  
There was a slight twitch from Jeremy, probably only reacting to the sound of his own name.  
  
Aragorn stood up. "Chairelf, I propose that we turn both the Paxman and Gandalf in to the police."  
  
Legolas was unconvinced. "But surely this will put suspicion on us."  
  
This was greeted by murmurs from round the table, and a smug expression from Gandalf. There followed a few minutes of suggestions of varying from "kill him and bury the body", "send him to a plastic surgeon and give him a plane ticket to Brazil", to "get a Paxman flap and a bowl with his name on it".  
  
Then suddenly an alarm went off. They all leapt up.  
  
"Is that the Buffy alarm?"  
  
"No! Enterprise!"  
  
There was the sound of running feet towards the sitting room. Legolas took his place on the sofa and pointedly said "meeting adjourned."  
  
Then the room was silent apart from some appreciative murmurs from the hobbits and from Gandalf Heavy Breathing No. 16(a) "Woman, who, while having large knockers, is not particularly attractive, but is wearing skin tight catsuit and has pointy ears" (this to distinguish it from No.16, which was broadly the same but substituting 'funny computery stuff on face' for 'pointy ears').  
  
In the kitchen Paxman found himself alone. The time in the cupboard and with Gandalf had basically destroyed his mind and his sanity, but there was still one conscious thought left - and that was 'freedom'.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The next morning Legolas was somewhat confused. The escape of the Paxman had gone largely unremarked on, except for Gandalf's demands that they go out and look for him, calling his name and rattling his food bowl, which was ignored. Legolas' confusion was focused on Aragorn.  
  
"Why are you not in your work clothes?"  
  
Aragorn looked shifty. "It's casual Monday."  
  
"The forestry commission. Casual Monday. Aragorn, for some strange reason I don't believe you."  
  
Gimli appeared, nodding to everyone and giving a friendly "och" to Legolas.  
  
Legolas narrowed his eyes. Something was going on. "Aragorn. Am I going to have to hurt you, or are you just going to tell me what you're planning?"  
  
Frodo appeared with a pan full of breakfast. "He's digging a fallout shelter in the back garden. I found all the plans in his sock drawer when I was putting the clean ones away." Frodo was in a worryingly cheery mood, which generally meant they were in line for another Incident. He continued brightly, "I was very impressed at how you managed to get all that stuff into the garage while Legolas was reading the paper, and how you've planned to dig it in the lawn so it's so handy for the house."  
  
This got Sam's attention. "Where did you say you were digging this?"  
  
Aragorn looked into his bowl of salted porridge and mumbled, "Inthemiddleofthelawn."  
  
Sam was getting angry. This was quite unusual, but dangerous nonetheless. "I'm sorry Aragorn, I didn't quite hear you. Where did you say again?"  
  
Aragorn sprang into King of Gondor mode. "I am digging it in the middle of the lawn. Yes, it will mean sacrifice. But this country was built upon sacrifice! Did Wellington stop to think of the quality of the lawns at Waterloo? Did we hesitate because of the agricultural impact on Pelennor fields? No! We think first of the safety of our comrades! I am protecting this Fellowship against the threat of nuclear war! Cry God for Gondor, Merry and me!"  
  
This prompted a confused "what?" from the hobbit in question, who wasn't at his best before his second cup of coffee and third fry up in the morning.  
  
Legolas sighed. "Aragorn. There is one, small, tiny, minor point that you've neglected to take into account."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
"We are all immortal. And probably immune to violent irradiated death after what happened between us and the Valar. So building a fallout shelter, which incidentally is about as much use as a soap herring in the actual event of nuclear war, is rather pointless."  
  
Unfortunately this argument did not have the desired effect. Gimli piped up "Och, Aragorn, I told you that the earth shelter was a daft idea. We should be going with concrete."  
  
Aragorn's eyes lit up. "Yes! Concrete! Lead-lined concrete! Get me the Yellow Pages!" He leapt from the table, a man with a mission.  
  
Legolas turned to Gimli. "Why are you getting involved?"  
  
"Och, he's going to build it anyway. I might as well make sure it doesnae collapse on him."  
  
Aragorn returned with the Yellow Pages. "How odd. There doesn't seem to be anyone listed under "fallout shelters", or "lead-lined concrete suppliers"."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
That evening, a few doors down from the Fellowship house, a doorbell was rung. Mrs. Pettifer opened the door to reveal two short men, wearing t- shirts with a large mushroom cloud printed on them, and what appeared to be world war two tin helmets with NPC badges stuck on with sellotape.  
  
"Hello madam, we are your local Nuclear Protection Committee." The man gestured to his helmet. "Have your family made plans for what you will do when World War Three happens?"  
  
"Umm, no."  
  
Pippin wedged his foot into the door. "Well, can you spare some time for us to talk to you? It could mean the difference between a long lingering death and survival in a terrible semi-human form."  
  
The woman froze like a rabbit in the headlights, until natural instincts of politeness crept in. "You'd, ummm, better come in. I'll get the kettle on."  
  
Merry and Pippin got themselves comfy on the sofa. They had with them large quantities of photocopied 'Protect & Survive' leaflets from the 1970s, augmented with pictures taken from movies with titles like 'Night of the Evil Zombies IV' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Merry and Pippin didn't have an ounce of public spirit in them (unless you are going to count that vodka they swiped from the off-licence); they had seen an opportunity to be let into other people's houses and cause trouble and had seized it.  
  
The woman returned, bearing tea and followed by two suspicious looking children. The hobbits took their tea graciously.  
  
"So, madam, have you considered what impact nuclear war would have on your two lovely children?"  
  
"No, no, I haven't."  
  
"Well, let me first start by telling you about the explosion itself. Do you know the difference between an air burst and a ground burst?"  
  
The woman shook her head. Merry and Pippin began their explanation of what happens after a nuclear blast. Two sentences in she sent the children out to the garden. Two minutes in she was looking very pale indeed.  
  
"And are you aware of how to recognise the symptoms of radiation sickness?"  
  
Three minutes later Mrs. Pettifer was being copiously sick in the kitchen sink. Merry and Pippin had put a great deal of effort into this and were not being disappointed with the results. This had broken their record from the previous house, where it had taken over ten minutes to make them throw up.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Legolas came home from work that evening to see Frodo apparently attempting to communicate with a large hole in the back lawn.  
  
"Would you like a cup of tea?"  
  
Legolas was about to go and phone the psychiatric nurse when the hole answered.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Tea!"  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"I said TEA! Would you like some?"  
  
"Yes please?"  
  
"Milk and sugar?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Never mind."  
  
Legolas decided to introduce some sanity into the conversation. "Why don't you come out?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Come out of the hole!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I think it might just be deep enough. And it probably wouldn't be a good idea for Frodo to lower your tea in on a piece of string - someone might get burned."  
  
"It worked the last time." There was a sound of clinking china. "Do you want the cups back?"  
  
Legolas put on his primary school teacher voice. "Aragorn son of Arathorn you will get yourself out of that hole this minute or there will be Trouble."  
  
Frodo found himself standing to attention at the mere sound of command in the voice. There was a brief silence from the hole.  
  
"Yes, Legolas. Could you pass down the ladder?"  
  
"What ladder?"  
  
"The ladder on the other side of the hole to where you're standing."  
  
"All there is on that side is a mound of earth."  
  
"Oh. Oh dear."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Some time, swearing, climbing and tea later Legolas, Frodo and two mud covered beings claiming to be Gimli and Aragorn were sat beside the hole. Sam had briefly appeared, and attempted to kill Aragorn for the damage he'd done to the lawn. However, Aragorn was so muddy he couldn't get a proper grip round his neck, so he'd gone off to brood and plot elsewhere. Gandalf had dragged himself out to cast aspersions about the whole project.  
  
"I know what will happen. You're delving too greedily and too deep; you'll awake Things from the deep places."  
  
Legolas interrupted before Gandalf got going and set Frodo off on the road to another Incident. "Gandalf, I hardly think you can awake a Balrog from 20 ft down in a suburban back garden."  
  
"That's just what Durin said when he stared with the mines of Khazad-dum!"  
  
There was a pause as they all tried to absorb this statement.  
  
"Och, you don't mine mithril in a back garden. It's no big enough."  
  
"I stand by my statement. There will be orcs before you know it!"  
  
"No, that will just be the neighbours, banging on the door to be let in BECAUSE THEY HAVEN'T MADE PROPER PROVISIONS!" This final comment was shouted over the fences at the neighbours, since Aragorn felt that everyone should be as prepared as he was.  
  
"The orcs will be there too, wanting let in. You mark my words, orcs!"  
  
Legolas realised that Frodo had begun to burrow into his side, and while not gibbering was most definitely agitated. It was time to steer the conversation away from orcs. "Look, we are immortal. We've all survived a long time in very violent environments without dying. The probability is that we can't be killed by fallout, or radiation sickness, so this shelter is totally pointless."  
  
"Better safe than sorry."  
  
"But even if you're right, how long do we stay down there? Civilisation will be ruined, ambient radiation would be increased, water supplies polluted..."  
  
"Two weeks."  
  
Legolas paused. "Two weeks. All the effects of nuclear holocaust will have dissipated in two weeks. Where exactly are you getting your information from Aragorn?"  
  
"Protect and Survive!" Aragorn handed him a dishevelled mud splattered leaflet.  
  
Legolas took it with distaste and read it. It seemed familiar, and looked dated, but he had probably ignored it the first time round, since he was immortal. His incredulity grew. "Aragorn, this same leaflet advocates lying on the ground or in a ditch to avoid the effects of nuclear heat and blast. These people are quite possibly telling some tiny little fibs, to make people think they can do something about nuclear war when they can't."  
  
"The government would never lie to us!"  
  
"Aragorn, you've been the government, you've been several governments in fact. I've heard you lie. And not just little 'no new taxation' lies, but big, whopping great lies. Remember the drains in Minas Tirith?"  
  
Frodo made a face. "Urrgh, please, I don't want to think about that. I only lived in the third circle, I don't even want to know about what went on in the seventh."  
  
Aragorn ignored this. "But surely governments have learned?"  
  
"You'd had over 5000 years of governmental experience when you gave your little briefing in London in 1347."  
  
"I don't remember."  
  
"Not a lot of people did. It was called "Why we have nothing to fear from the Black Death", and 90% of the audience were dead within two years."  
  
Aragorn looked uncomfortable. "But even so, it will offer some protection when we're done. Better than nothing?" Aragorn looked hopeful.  
  
Legolas gave in. Logic was a foreign concept to Aragorn. But then again, so were 'hairbrush' and 'shaving'. There were limits though. "How are we all expected to get in there?"  
  
"I did the calculations. There should be plenty of room."  
  
"Standing on each others heads?" Legolas paused. "Aragorn - are you having that problem distinguishing between feet and inches again?"  
  
"Och, I told ye it was too small, but you wouldn't listen."  
  
"I'm an elderly wizard. I demand there be enough room for me, my hat, my chair and my, ahem, reading material."  
  
Frodo's practical sense came in as well. "And you know how Merry and Pippin eat more in a stressful situation. We're going to need an awful lot of food down there. An awful lot."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A week after the completion of the shelter Aragorn awoke with the sounds of air raid sirens ringing in his ears. He took a moment to orient himself. No, these sirens were real. This was it. He had been proved right. He could show how good he was in times of national crisis.  
  
It took almost another ten seconds for Aragorn to remember to stop screaming.  
  
"War! War! They've dropped the bomb! Everyone into the air-raid shelter!" He ran up and down the corridor, banging on doors, trying to wake everyone else up. "Take only what we can't leave to be destroyed in the blast!"  
  
Merry and Pippin went for the enormously well-endowed fertility statue.  
  
"On second thoughts, take only what you need to survive."  
  
The entire Fellowship was in the shelter within 3 minutes and 52 seconds. They had even managed to fit in some household essentials: Gandalf's chair, a selection of books to suit all of their tastes, camp beds, cooking utensils and, due to an unexplained law of physics observed whenever a group of people are confined in a small space, Scrabble, Monopoly and a jigsaw with ten pieces missing. Clothes and food had been moved in pre- emptively by Aragorn a few days previously, which solved the mystery of what had happened to most of everyone's underwear.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
When the rest of the street heard the distant sound of air-raid sirens they acted according to the advice in Merry and Pippin's booklets. Well, eventually they did, after they'd been round to the Fellowship house to see if there was any room left in their fallout shelter, only to discover that Aragorn, in anticipation of this very moment, had hidden the entrance.  
  
They rushed back to their own houses and dived into the cupboards, to spend their last few minutes, or their last few minutes of being recognisably human, in relative peace, making one last attempt at pretending they'd lead happy lives. Little dramas unfolded up and down the street.  
  
"Martin, I just want to tell you that even after ten years of marriage, that I still love you."  
  
"Daphne, I think you should know, I've been meaning to tell you this for some time now... I'm gay."  
  
"What? You decide to tell me this now. You could have let me die thinking that our marriage hadn't been a complete waste of time. But noooo, you decide that you have to get things off your chest."  
  
"But that's what you're supposed to do when you've only got two and a half minutes to live, isn't it?"  
  
"You're not supposed to tell people things that'll upset them. You could have lied! I lied! I've been shagging my boss for over a year now, but I was prepared to let you think that I loved you."  
  
"Oh, um sorry."  
  
"Now we're going to spend what time we have left in awkward silence."  
  
And next door...  
  
"Where's the baby?"  
  
"We haven't got a baby!"  
  
"Oh shit, I'm in the wrong house."  
  
And next door to that...  
  
"We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when..."  
  
"If you don't stop singing bloody Vera Lynn then you'll meet your end two minutes earlier than you were supposed to at the end of this frying pan!"  
  
And in the next house along...  
  
"Dear God, Buddah, Allah, Jehovah... can anyone remember any of the Hindu ones?"  
  
"Diwali?"  
  
"No, I think that's a festival. Dear God, Buddah, Allah, Jehovah and whoever we're supposed to worship at Diwali -"  
  
"We could try for some of the Pagan ones..."  
  
"Shut up, Sean. We may have never set foot in any house of religion - except for at our Sheila's wedding and we can't even remember which one it was - but we're not bad people, definitely a lot better than most of the people in this street and we would like to be considered for any good afterlifes that there might be space left in. Thank you for your time and consideration."  
  
And at No. 27  
  
"I think we must have read the leaflet wrong, there's no way we're going to get all these windows bricked up in the next two minutes."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Down in the Fellowship bunker Frodo was trying to be terribly British and stiff upper lipped to stop himself from having an Incident, which meant that in the last half hour he'd made about five cups of tea per person.  
  
Sam looked at Merry and Pippin and how much tea they'd consumed and came to the logical end result. "Aragorn... you know when you built the shelter? You did remember to put in facilities, didn't you?"  
  
"Facilities?"  
  
"He's talking about a lavatory, Aragorn." Supplied Legolas. "We can't exactly go out and pee in the garden, because as much good as it will do for the flowers, they aren't there any more."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Och, see that wooden door over there with the half-moon shape cut into it? It's in there. He forgot all about it, so I built one, and it doesn't use up any of our water supply to flush it..." Gimli continued a with a long and detailed explanation of how the new toilet worked, why Gimli wanted to build one into the house they would have to build when they got out and why it had been inspired by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Legolas gave him he verbal equivalent of a pat on the head and left him to it.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Four hours later, Frodo had reduced the amount of tea being made to a more sensible level, although the Fellowship had given Gimli's revolutionary toilet design a thorough test. They settled down to play what should have been a nice, friendly game of Scrabble. But then again, they were playing it with Merry and Pippin.  
  
"I really don't think that's a word."  
  
"Of course it's a word. It's a complex gynaecological problem."  
  
"How on earth do you know that? And anyway, it's spelt with a 'v'."  
  
Legolas looked at the words on the board and twitched. He was supposed to spend the next two weeks in here?  
  
He thought about a post-nuclear landscape. He thought of radiation sickness the way Merry and Pippin described it. He even thought about his hair falling out. Then he thought about watching his life slip away as he spent the next fortnight trapped in a fallout shelter with the rest of the Fellowship. He was taking his chances outside.  
  
Legolas got up and strode towards the door. "I'm going out. I will be some time."  
  
Frodo looked distraught. "Legolas, you can't go out there! I'm not going to let you die." Frodo wrapped his arms and legs around Legolas' knees. Legolas kicked him away.  
  
"Goodbye, I'd like you all to know that you've done more than anyone else to completely ruin my life. And yes, I'm including my mother in this, Gandalf." With that, Legolas made his dramatic exit from the bunker and perhaps the stage of life.  
  
As the door slammed shut there was a cry of "If you go out you can't come back in again!" from Aragorn.  
  
Frodo was stood pointing at the door, occasionally whimpering "gone...".  
  
Sam was about to offer comfort when Aragorn slapped Frodo across the back in a manly fashion and barked "No point in pining. He's gone, get used to it. It's a cruel world after the bomb's dropped." Aragorn turned his attention to the rest of the Fellowship as Sam tired to comfort the trembling Frodo. "Now, the majority of civilisation will have been destroyed, but there may be pockets of survival. We have to listen to Radio 4 to find out what to do."  
  
Aragorn reached for the radio. Unfortunately, as he reached to turn it on he knocked over a can of Tennents that miraculously hadn't been there a moment before. The lager poured into the radio, which made some horrible crackling noises and then went dead.  
  
"Oh. Oh dear." Aragorn brightened again. "But it doesn't matter, we have all the leaflets, and as soon as the immediate danger has passed we can go out and loot a new radio."  
  
There was uncomfortable silence for a while.  
  
Then, the voice of conscience came from an unusual source. Merry looked uncomfortable, then said, "ummmmm. We have known Legolas for like thousands of years. Don't you think we should do something to mourn his horrible, lingering death?"  
  
The others had the decency to look ashamed, apart from Frodo who hadn't stopped looking distraught yet.  
  
"We could sing a lament. He's an elf, he'd like that."  
  
Sam and Frodo looked at each other. They knew what Legolas thought about everyone else's singing. He had used the phrases "like cats being run over with a steamroller" and "like a peacock being castrated with a rusty knife" to describe their singing. But, since he was dead, the only thing he could do was turn in his grave. And, since he didn't have a grave, if he did start turning he might roll so far that they wouldn't have to step over his corpse when they left the shelter.  
  
Aragorn stood up, solemnly. "Let us sing."  
  
"See that elf, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen..."  
  
"GANDALF! That is not what he would have wanted."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
After going out the door Legolas paused. There was still a ladder between him and the outside world, and he truly did not know what he would find out there. He briefly wondered if it was possible to commit suicide by shooting yourself with your own longbow, but then realised that he'd left the longbow in the house.  
  
Legolas steeled himself and took a deep breath as he prepared to open the final hatch. He stepped out. And stopped.  
  
Had this been a film the 'Morning' music from 'Peer Gynt' would be playing. Flowers were blooming. Birds were singing. Dawn was breaking, and there was the sound of a milk float. Legolas was suddenly filled with joy - there had been no bomb! Legolas half turned to go back and tell the others, then stopped. He had heard the air raid sirens. He should find out what was going on first.  
  
He let himself back into the house, and turned the stereo in the kitchen on. The sound of air raid sirens came out. He paused. Why on earth was Radio 4 playing air raid sirens? If there was a war on, surely people had got the message by now? The he looked at the stereo again. It was set to 'tape'. Now filled with a growing sense of suspicion Legolas pressed eject, and was presented with a tape bearing the label "BBC Sound Effects. Volume 6: War". Legolas knew who was behind this. Only Gandalf had the time, intelligence, cunning and deep down malice to do this.  
  
Legolas briefly flicked on Radio 4, just to make sure life was as normal, then set off down the garden. Half way down he stopped. Aragorn had said they would need to be down there for two weeks. Which meant, with any luck, a whole two weeks with no Merry, Pippin or Gandalf. Legolas returned to the house, thinking of his Hammond organ.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Diary of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, last surviving Man of Gondor, last surviving human (probably, I mean there might be some people ok in the desert, or the rainforests. You never know.)  
  
Day Two.  
  
We are all slowly adapting to life in the bunker and the loss of Legolas. The terrible deaths of thousands weigh heavily on our minds, but somehow we soldier on.  
  
Today we played Monopoly. Merry, Pippin and Gandalf all cheated and all had title deeds to Mayfair and Park Lane. Gimli won whilst they were arguing among themselves.  
  
In other news, Frodo and Sam decided to take their chances with the fatal radiation outside. We knew that they were both going to their deaths, and we probably should have tried to dissuade them, but I had thrown a double and got an extra go and wasn't paying attention. We are assured that it was the act of two brave hobbits, or at least one brave hobbit and one disturbed hobbit.  
  
Merry and Pippin have bagsied their food rations.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Frodo and Sam paused at the foot of the ladder leading to the outside world.  
  
Frodo put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam."  
  
Sam patted Frodo's hand. "That was really very moving the first time you said it, but you've said it that many times it doesn't have the impact any more."  
  
"Oh. Um, how about 'it's been nice knowing you'?"  
  
"Hmm. Cliched, but the sentiment's there. It's been nice knowing you too, Frodo."  
  
They hugged, and then started to climb the ladder. Sam was first out, and Frodo called up to him "How far did Legolas get?"  
  
"Quite a long way. He's not here."  
  
"You mean there's hope?"  
  
"I think you'd better come and look for yourself."  
  
Frodo emerged into the open air. "Oh. Oh well. Do you think we've died very fast and this is heaven?"  
  
"Not unless heaven includes him from down the road practising the tuba very badly in the back garden."  
  
"Hell?"  
  
"No, don't see the Sackville-Bagginses anywhere. I think there may not have been nuclear war."  
  
Frodo looked contemplative for a moment, then shrugged. "What do you want for breakfast? Everything in the fridge should be alright."  
  
"Aren't we going to tell them?"  
  
"Sam, if there's been no war the only people in the house will be you, me and Legolas."  
  
Sam smiled.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
They found Legolas in the kitchen. He saw them and paused. "None of the others have followed you?"  
  
"No, just us. The rest of them think we're dead."  
  
"Oh, that's good. I phoned in sick for you yesterday Sam, told them you had the flu, so best take today off and go in tomorrow looking a bit rough."  
  
Sam nodded.  
  
Frodo looked concerned. "You will do that for Aragorn and Gimli as well? You know how bad Aragorn is a job interviews, we've got to keep his job."  
  
"Yes, don't worry, I've told their bosses they've got the flu as well. I don't want a repeat of that time when he listed the positive points he could bring to the job as 'experience ruling large kingdom and orc slaying'."  
  
Frodo relaxed. Then he looked around the room. "Look at the state of this place! We must have knocked half the things off when we left, and I don't know how this much dust can accumulate in this short time." Frodo had slipped easily back into being his old self again.  
  
"I'd better be seeing to the garden. It's like it's been trampled by dozens of people. Almost as if they were looking for something."  
  
Something struck Frodo, "what about Merry and Pippin?"  
  
"What about them?"  
  
"You haven't phoned in sick for them too, have you?"  
  
"No. They get through enough jobs as it is. It was too much effort to dial the number and lie."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The two weeks had passed slowly but surely down in the shelter. It was now time to face the outside world, and Aragorn was giving them all a pep talk.  
  
"Now, what we will find out there will most likely be horrific. This is not least because it will include the bodies of three of our closest friends lying dead within feet of the shelter. Indeed, there may even be enough of them left for us to see the expressions of agonised terror from their last, pain filled moments. Although, should there have arisen, as is possible, a race of mutant super-cockroaches their bodies will have been eaten, and we will need to be on our guard, as the cockroaches by now will have eaten most of the corpses in this area. Our first objective is to find supplies of food and water, and, if there are cockroaches, an easily defensible position and weapons. Everyone clear on this?"  
  
The rest of them had switched off after the cockroaches, since 'a race of mutant super-cockroaches will have taken over by the time we come out, you mark my words' had comprised about half of what Aragorn had said since the fourth day. They all murmured in agreement after he had stopped talking though. The others knew mutant cockroaches was a daft idea; they were more worried about the seven foot tall intelligent homicidal rats. Well, Gandalf as the possessor of the BBC soundtrack tape and fermenter of this whole incident had really rather enjoyed the two weeks down here. It was like 'Big Brother', only with so much more despair and suffering.  
  
There was something on Merry's mind. "We should see if there's any women about."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, we need to repopulate the planet. We'll be like, the founders of a new race of... of... short deformed creatures! All we need are some women who aren't too mutated."  
  
"Yeah, and we'll be like the best guys on the planet, with no radiation deformations!"  
  
Only Merry and Pippin could see a nuclear holocaust as a chance to get laid.  
  
Aragorn handed out the swords, and went first up the ladder. He stuck his head out.  
  
"Better come up carefully. I don't see any corpses, so I was probably right about the super-cockroaches."  
  
He came out and crouched, senses alert to danger.  
  
The others blinked in the unaccustomed sunlight as they emerged. Then they looked confused.  
  
"Och, Aragorn, there's an awful lot of houses left standing."  
  
"Looting! Looting!" Merry and Pippin jumped up and down.  
  
Aragorn looked at them sternly.  
  
"Look, they'd have wanted us to have it. Really."  
  
Gimli was still looking puzzled. "I can hear cars. And people."  
  
Aragorn ignored him. "Perhaps the other three tried to take shelter in the house. We should at least look for the corpses to give them a proper burial."  
  
They all followed them into the house. No corpses in the kitchen, which was looking very clean for having been deserted for a fortnight. No fallout dust or anything.  
  
"That sounds like the hoover in the sitting room." They went to the source of the noise.  
  
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGH!" They screamed in unison.  
  
"Eeeek!" Frodo screamed back.  
  
"Frodo! How many times have we told you, at least wear boxers to do the cleaning." Then Aragorn's brain caught up with him. "Why aren't you dead?"  
  
"Oh, um, there was no nuclear war, Gandalf set you all up. And we, um, didn't tell you because, ummmm, we, um couldn't find the door again. It's that well hidden."  
  
Aragorn turned to wax wrathful at Gandalf, but Gandalf had disappeared.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Epilogue.  
  
"And tonight, on 'Newsnight', we report on the reappearance of BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman. Paxman, who had been missing for over three weeks, was found wandering the streets in a distressed state. He disappeared from a busy BBC studio, but no witnesses saw him leave and he has not yet been able to make any coherent statement about his ordeal. Was this a kidnapping or a breakdown?"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 


End file.
